One of problems associated with outgoing call connections by handset telecommunication devices relates to cancelling established calls soon after their establishment. This typically occurs in a situation when a user holds the phone handset at the ear while listening to a waiting tone and after a few beeps decides to disconnect the call by using a disconnect button at the handset—this typically involves taking the handset away from the ear and pushing the disconnect button.
It may happen that the call was actually answered after the user took the handset away from the ear and could not hear the call being answered. This causes a few problems: the calling user perceives the call as unanswered, the answering user is annoyed by a call that has just been terminated, and the network traffic is used without bringing any positive result to the users. The communication efficiency thus decreases.
Therefore, there is a need to provide improvements to handling outgoing call connections in telecommunication devices in order to limit the number of calls that have been terminated soon after their establishment, to increase the communication efficiency and the efficiency of use of telecommunication network bandwidth.
Modern telecommunication devices are known to have functionality that enables detection of the state or position of the device. For example, a U.S. Pat. No. 8,744,425B2 discloses a mobile terminal apparatus that includes: a microphone; a switch control unit, which switches between a normal mode, in which a voice uttered toward the microphone is transmitted to an intended party, and a mute mode, in which the voice is not transmitted to the intended party; and a proximity sensor, which detects whether a detection object, such as user's ear, is in proximity to the proximity sensor. While the mute mode is being executed, if the detection object is detected by the proximity sensor, the switch control unit switches to the normal mode.
A US patent application US2007004470A1 discloses a mobile station having a proximity sensor and a power reducer that controls power consumption of the display. The proximity sensor is coupled to the chassis and causes the power consumption to be reduced when the display is within a predetermined range of an external object.
Thus, the proximity sensors have been used so far in the mobile stations to control the volume or display parameters, but their functionality related to handling calls has not been envisaged yet.